teaching and reviewing {ou} and {ow}

Today we reviewed {ou} and {ow}.  

Here are some of my favorite activities. . .

Literature Connections for "ow"

We made an "ow" sunflower with "ow" words on each petal.   There is a template below.

To review "ou" we also read several books. . .

One of my favorite poetry books. . . perfect for the month of April!

Literature connections for "ou". . .

We wrote stories about our "owies". . .and then we had a "sour" taste test {which was the favorite activity of course}!  We tasted sour worms, sour patch kids, and "cry baby" gum.  The students wrote about things that taste sour and their favorite "sour" item from the taste test.

Some of my kids were pretty tough and the "sour stuff" didn't phase them at all!

Others had some pretty cute facial expressions!

Ou:Ow Review Activities

How "Tues"day Tip #1

Tip #1 is something that I'm adding to my classroom for next year!  I think my students will love completing Daily 5 Word Work Activities using a table top dry erase board.  They can write high frequency words, use playdough, and build words with magnetic letters.  I am designing the workspaces for two students at each table.  The great news is that the entire project can be completed at a very low cost (especially if you have odds and ends around your classroom or house).  It's also garage sale season, and teachers can always find some great bargains!

You will need to make a trip to. . .

You'll need 1 sheet of thrifty white panel board

and "kid" sized tables.

These were used for painting, playdough, and all kinds of art projects in the Perry home!  

CVS and Walgreen's have them for fairly reasonable costs.  I got the one below for $9.99 from CVS during a spring sale.

Get one of the handy Home Depot employees to cut the board to fit the dimensions of your table.

After we got the boards for the dry erase tables there was still a lot of board left so we made two huge dry erase boards for the boys!  You can also have them cut individual sized white boards for your class!  The entire board is only about $13.00 so you can get an entire class set of brand new boards for just over $25.00.  Have your students bring in an old towel or sock, and you'll be set for the year!

You'll need some velcro as well.  This is industrial strength, but any kind will do if you position it on the table correctly.  This kind of velcro has adhesive strips so there's no mess!  You don't have to glue or drill at all.  Just make sure you allow at least 24 hours before trying to remove the dry erase top.

Carefully place the velcro in each corner and in the center of the table.  

Before

After

There are several variations of this project so you can adapt it to meet the needs of your students and your space. In addition to the supplies that I mentioned above,  you can also purchase a can of "magnetic" paint so that students can use magnetic letters.  

You can purchase it from Hobby Lobby for $10.99.  It's a fairly large can which can be used for multiple projects.  As always you have the flexibility of removing the dry erase top for messy projects!

Dry Erase/Word Work Table

I hope you've enjoyed tip #1!  I'm very excited about using it in my classroom next year.  I decided on a beach/ocean theme next year, and I think this will look so cute on the "writing/word work" boardwalk!  

Today's my birthday (it's my last year as a "20 something"), and Mr. Perry has been trying to hurry me along all morning long!  I'm heading off to see what he has planned for the day!  I hope you enjoyed this tip!  Stay tuned for more great tips, fabulous finds, and freebies!  

Something to Shout About!

This week we're our phonemic awareness skill are "ou" and "ow".  Here are a few cute ideas that my class has enjoyed so far.  The book in the picture above is full of short poems which are perfect for primary learners.  They're short, funny, and have fabulous illustrations.  Today we talked about how April is national poetry month, and we promised to read at least one great poem every single day for the rest of the year.

Here's a copy of our poem of the week.

my cow_poem

I love this book because it is so comprehensive.  It has word families, consonant blends, digraphs, vowel combinations, prefixes and suffixes, and short skill assessments.  This week we're making the "ouch" and "own" books.  This is also a great tool for students because they store them in a ziploc bag inside their book boxes.  They can study their weekly spelling words and get accurate spellings for words that they're not sure about.  

I also love this book because it has so many open ended word sorts.  There are lots of ways to use this book with students of all levels.  I can adjust the parameters of the sort for my students depending on their phonemic awareness strengths and reading abilities.  My higher students like to use these as a word challenge to see how many different ways the words can be sorted.

On Monday we made these sunflowers and brainstormed lots of  "ow" words.  

We also read this book to learn more about the life cycle of  asunflower.  

Today we focused more on "ou."  We read "Arthur's Boo Boo's," and then each student completed a 

text-to-self connection about an injury or "owie" that they've had.  Most of the students are still working on theirs, but here is an example.  

I think they look so dang cute, and I guess I never really knew how much a neon colored band-aid could put a smile on a little one's face!

We're working on measurement in math right now so we got those sunflowers out again.  Each student's flower was just a little different.  They all had different lengths for their stem, petals, and leaves.  They measured their flowers and other items from around the room using snap cubes.  

We also painted these flowers for more measurement practice tomorrow.  We'll use paper clips, bear counters, snap cubes, color tiles, and crayons to measure these tomorrow.  

 

It's amazing how much six and seven year olds love to paint!

Tomorrow we're having a "sour" taste test with sour jelly beans, sour straws, and pickles. We'll graph the and analyze our results.  I can't wait to snap pictures of those cute little "sour" faces!

What's poppin'?

We're working on "or" this week, and here are a few things that I've created.  While we finish up our fairy tales, we'll enjoy this unit of fun and enjoy a book discussion or some flashlight reading  with popcorn on Friday!  This is just one part of the unit.  The entire unit includes poetry, several word work activities, literature connections/writing, math, and art!  It will be on TpT later this week along with my fairy tale unit!  Tomorrow we have open house so I'll be snapping lots of pics with great work from 1st grade and all from all around my school...I hope you have a great week!

popcorn word work

Thank you. . .

I just want to say thank you to everyone for your kind words, encouragement, and support.  I recently reached "500" followers, and I feel so blessed to be part of a blogging community with such talented, resourceful, and creative educators.  Thank you for allowing others to see pieces of your lives, for opening the doors of your classrooms, and for sharing your brilliant minds.  I so enjoy getting to "peek" into your classrooms to see all of the great ideas and instructional tools that you're using.  

Here is a little something that I made to help my students review high frequency words.  I'm hoping that this will benefit my tactile and visual learners who need to build the words and see them over and over again.  I plan on using them with my tutoring groups and after I complete assessments to find out which words are still somewhat tricky for my kiddos.  

spring word work

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

st patrick's day word work

Time Flies!

I don't know about y'all but I find that more and more I have to integrate as much as possible within subject areas and topics to get everything in because time flies!  I'm not saying that I'm always successful at that, but here is a cute little activity that I made for next week.  We are focusing on "R Controlled Vowels" and I wanted my students to review the skill of "Inference."  So here's a little animal investigation activity.  I must say that inspiration for this activity stemmed completely from Babbling Abby who is full of amazing ideas and resources.  She has an awesome inference activity on TpT, and lots of other great resources on her blog.  

animal inference

Happy Wednesday!

wacky wednesday

Seuss Sentence Sense

Seuss Sentence Sense

I only have eyes for you. . .

long i word sort

Mini-Boggle

If you have a word work, spelling, or making words station as part of your literacy/reading block you'll love this.  My teaching bud Ms. Reeves (who really needs to start a blog herself because she's full of creative and cute activities) told me about this idea!  It's a mini-boggle set which can be used as an independent word work activity.  It's compact, quiet, and it can be used all year long!  She ordered them from Oriental Trading.  You get a dozen of them for $7.99.  Each one has a cover and 16 letter cubes.  

Depending on the age of your students, you may want to modify the activity.  This game can be as simple or complex as you'd like. For added challenge you can also grab a set of these 3 minute sand timers.  They are $4.99 per dozen.  

boggle recording page

Valentine Homophones

Valentine Homophones

new making words activity

I just finished up on a Valentine's Day unit with math, literacy, and word work.  Here's a freebie from the unit.  This is my favorite "making words" activity.  The entire unit is posted on TpT for $3.99, but it's on sale for $2.99 until Sunday! 

cupcake making words

Valentine Sweets & Treats

I just finished up on "Valentine Sweets & Treats," a word work activity for contraction words.  The version below is a sample with about half of the words.  The full version is on on TpT for $1.99, and if you need a recording page to accompany it, I'll e-mail it to you.  I had to create it separately so I could include a "watermarked background."  Check it out!

Valentine Treats & Sweets_word Work Activities_blog Copy

80's day reading, writing, and math...

Each group had 10 minutes to see if they could record 80 words (spelled correctly).  We used an online timer to track the time.

We also made "boomboxes" and "cassette tapes" for our math review.  The kids were amazed that in the 80's there were no mp3 players or ipods to listen to music.  They had no idea about boomboxes or tapes!